Page 84 of Ruthless Enforcer

There's pride in those two words. Not Whitlock pride. Not the inherited kind that comes with land and money and a name people recognize before you enter a room. Hers. She built this herself.

And suddenly the idea of her standing anonymously in the corner of her own fucking exhibition pisses me off. “You should be able to tell them. Your name shouldn’t matter.”

“No, Gabriel”—she quirks an eyebrow—“it shouldn’t, but it does.”

I let that go for the moment and focus on the important thing. “You weren’t planning to attend your first solo show?”

Her expression becomes wistful. “It’d be nice, but under the circumstances it isn’t advisable, is it? I’m just grateful you’re making it possible for my paintings to be there.”

That’s not enough. Clara will never have to settle, not while I’m her husband. “What do you normally do for an opening?”

“I go as Clara, a guest with enough money to buy the entire gallery. I drink champagne. I listen to strangers discuss my paintings as if I'm not standing three feet away.” Her mouth curves. “It's actually very educational.”

“Sounds fucking terrible.”

“I love it.”

Of course she does. I look at her standing there barefoot in my shirt, paint on her fingers, completely alive in a way I've never seen her anywhere else.

And something settles unpleasantly beneath my ribs.

This is her life.

Not the Whitlock estate. Not galas or security details or whatever expectations came attached to being James Whitlock's niece.

This. Paint under her fingernails. Six-foot canvases. A secret name she made important without anybody else's help.

She deserves to have this. She deserves the freedom to decide when Claire Laurent becomes Clara Whitlock. She deserves horses and studios and exhibitions and a thousand mornings where the most dangerous thing she has to worry about is whether the blue on a canvas is the wrong shade.

And she married a man who kills people for a living.

There it is.

The thought I've been avoiding since I started imagining ranches big enough for her horses.

I can keep Clara safe. I know that. What I don't know is whether I can give her a life where she doesn't always need to be kept safe. “I'll handle the exhibition.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Meaning?”

“Transport. Insurance. Security. Whatever the gallery needs. Claire Laurent stays Claire Laurent until you decide otherwise.”

Something in her face changes. “Gabriel.”

“And I'm coming as your date.”

She blinks. “To the opening?”

“Yeah.” And every event she wants to attend in the future.

“I thought we weren’t going,” she says carefully.

“We are. I’ll work it out.” I push away from the table and go to her, taking her hips. “For the record, I'm not going as your security. I'm not going as a Reyes. I'm going because my wife has her first solo exhibition, and I want to see it.”

Her eyes immediately fill.

Fuck. I shake her a little. “Don't do that.”

“Do what?”